wee bauble of Providence

MANGY TRUTH

Mark Twain, pilot, plummets

to the river-depths.

Hobo-poet steps

Twin Cities morris-dance (let’s

follow him).  The deep dive

of the mystery of each

child – landed on a beach

in Egypt, or in Bethlehem (I’ve

got a certain kid in mind).  Already

requiem in Alexandria

(the library).  Memento mori.

Osiris?  Full of bookworms, Henry.

A Master Mason?  Hire ‘im.

11.32 ft/sec...

– wait a sec – ham

radio?  In RI?  The signal’s dim.

Garfield died 23.5 degrees

off Library pedestal.

So we meet the eternal –

a starry Book Depository (seas

rising... queasy feeling) charms

the assassin into travesty

(sick temper, see).

O westward course of life’s alarms!

I don’t know where we’re going, Hobo

Henry wails.  An infant

Providence is born.  Want

mangy truth?  Frail monarch is a rainbow.

12.24.18

of the clay peoples

PEACOCK’S EYE

Path P stretch in six directions

out of Cairo, Huck,

sez Jim – any way you look.

One of them north-south junctions,

I reckon.  There was a labyrinth

of red clay trenches –

dead men in its clenches

like flies hung in a spider’s tent

– heavy that clay, so heavy!

Like the bottom of the sea.

How could a little child be

dancing in such dismal gravy?

She’s Pueblo, of the clay peoples;

they put away wrath before

the sun go down, f’sure.

Lookee there.  & through the peephole

of his fingertips I saw (obscurely

as that garden of Sheba)

a lightning pathway – Sun-Ra

threshing floor – arisen merrily

from ripened Flanders wheat (so

melancholy).  Like Van Gogh

seized with a fury-glow

of happiness... Persephone?  O

yes!  Threading her crane-dance

through a peacock’s eye –

purple Hagia Sophia’s

woolly poncho-swirl (at cave-entrance).

5.24.16